


PLAGUE

by demigone



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Original Character(s), original - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11077041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigone/pseuds/demigone
Summary: "...and Phoebus Apollo heard him. Down from the peaks of Olympus he strode, angered at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and covered quiver. [45] The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god as he moved, and his coming was like the night. Then he sat down apart from the ships and let fly an arrow: terrible was the twang of the silver bow. The mules he assailed first and the swift dogs, [50] but then on the men themselves he let fly his stinging shafts, and struck; and constantly the pyres of the dead burned thick...";Lucas Bernat is a quiet kid with no past. But a single unsettling revelation sets his existence off kilter and puts him on the path of a terrifying journey to an even more alarming fate.





	PLAGUE

**Chapter 1**

Lucas stared awkwardly at the woman from across the paper-strewn desk. She was middle aged, with a round face, a smile that looked like it was held in place with fishhooks and an immaculate Monster Donut store uniform on which a shiny badge that read MANAGER was pinned.  
She was looking down at the sheet of paper in her hand. She creased her brow a little (but didn’t let her smile slip) and said, “So, your resumé…”  
Lucas winced, “Yeah?”  
Manager Laurie looked at him. “Your hobbies. You just wrote, um, _“Music”_. What exactly do you _mean_ by that?” Her eyes bored into his. He looked away.  
Lucas swallowed and said, “I, uh… Sometimes I make songs and stuff.” Her face was blank. He went on hesitantly, “Like, on my computer.” She was silent for a second, then nodded and her smile widened, but the rest of her expression betrayed a look of very vague understanding.  
“O-kay.” She looked up from the paper then, again with the stare, “Any other hobbies? Sports, or, I don’t know...?” She let her sentence trail off. Then, not for the first time since Lucas had entered her office, the woman seemed to… sniff the air. _Weird_.  
Lucas winced inwardly at her question. He should not have mentioned computers in a job interview. “No… not really.” The woman nodded slowly, not looking at him.  
“Awesome. Great. Okay, fine… yeah, that’s about it Lucas. We’ll certainly be… getting in contact with you.” She gave a thin-lipped smile. Lucas nodded.  
“Right. Thanks.” He stood up and turned towards the door. He turned the handle and stepped outside, feeling inexplicably shaken and perturbed. _Something about that lady_ , he thought.

*****

Lucas pushed the door open and walked into his foster house, not for the first time, with a scowl on his face.  
The place smelled like somewhere a lot of kids lived; home baking mixed with warm milk and grass stains. Homely, in short. Lucas’ foster parents were Sam and Nikki Moore: a pair of forty-something-year-old kind hearted Law graduates who couldn’t have kid son their own. Over the years, they had fostered over thirty kids. At the moment, they had ten, of whom Lucas was the oldest at fifteen.

He kicked off his trainers vaguely in the direction of the basket of other kids’ shoes, and began stomping up the stairs. He stopped halfway when he heard a call from behind him.  
“Luc!” He turned to see Nikki standing at the bottom of the stairs. Her corn-blonde hair was tied back, and there was a bit of flour smeared on her cheek. She was frowning, but Lucas knew this particular brand of frown well. She wasn’t actually mad.  
“I thought we agreed you were going to come in give me a status report when you got home?” Lucas shrugged. She rolled her eyes and went on, “So how _did_ the interview go?” Lucas’ scowl deepened.  
“Like I expected. Like all the others went.” He replied with a sigh. “I’m going to bed.” He turned and walked upstairs.  
Nikki called after him, “We haven’t had dinner yet–”

She was cut off from Lucas by the slam of his door.  
His room wasn’t tiny, but it was shared with Jamie, the second oldest of the foster kids. You could clearly see which side of the room belonged to whom; on one side the bed and immediate area were fairly clean, save for a stray dirty sock or shirt, with the desk in the corner supporting a smattering of papers and a Nintendo DS. A soccer ball rested on unmade bedclothes.  
On the other side, the single items of clothes were paralleled by small piles of laundry. The sheets were tangled feebly at the foot of the bed, where a used-looking laptop lay with a pair of earbuds already plugged. The desk was flooded with crumpled papers and old pens and the trash can on the floor overflowed with candy wrappers and more papers. Anyone who knew Lucas and his ADHD-wired brain could’ve guessed which side was his.

Lucas went to the desk and threw his keys and cell phone down, catching a glimpse of himself in the standing mirror as he did so.  
He often wondered if he looked anything like his real parents.  
Lucas was an orphan. No one knew who his dad was, and his mom, Elsa Bernat, had been killed in a hit and run shortly after he was born. He couldn’t remember her.  
As it was, he barely even thought about Elsa Bernat anymore. When he was a kid, and every new Foster Home was a scary new place with scary new kids, he would wish she would come back for him and take him away. But nowadays Lucas had grown out of those thoughts. Foster homes weren’t even that bad, anyway. Nikki was cool and so was Sam when he wasn’t at work. Plus, since there were lots of kids in the house Nikki made brownies or cookies frequently to keep them placated.

Morose thoughts over for the day, Lucas turned away from his reflection. As usual, his mind had gone from _check the mirror so see if that zit is gone_ to _my dead mom_ in two seconds flat. He opened his laptop, shoved in his earbuds and clambered onto the bed.  
The wall behind his headboard was plastered with posters that told a story of musical discovery and maturing: the oldest-looking was a creased and slightly faded Arctic Monkeys album cover, the next an Imagine Dragons print in similar condition, then David Bowie, Childish Gambino, Hamilton… the posters were yet another indication of Lucas’ dwelling. He had one of the most erratic music tastes of anyone, and didn’t hide it.  
Lucas opened his music app, clicked shuffle and let out a sigh as the familiar opening to a slow beat from Gambino’s _“Awaken, my Love!”_ album played. He opened his browser and began his near-daily ritual of a Wikipedia odyssey, but it didn’t take long for him to get bored. He gradually slipped down his headboard until he was lying with his head on a pillow. He watched the grey sky begin to grow dark through the window.

Lucas stared, blank-mindedly, into the flat, featureless rectangle of light for what could have been five minutes or an hour. He was content in moments like these, when his hyperactive brain cut out for a moment and he could slip into a trance. Peaceful.  
There was a sudden flurry of the snap-snap-snap of beating wings, and a raven landed on the windowsill. Still in a sleepy spell, Lucas admired the glossy sheen on the bird’s black feathers as it turned its head, displaying a beady black eye. The raven seemed to be staring directly at Lucas. It stayed still for a drawn-out minute, and everything in the world went still along with it.  
Lucas didn’t breathe. There was no sound from the wind shaking trees outside, no clatter of pots as Nikki made dinner downstairs. Then the bird turned from him and Lucas suddenly released a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.  
The bird had intrigued Lucas, but as his music switched to a slow track he found his body overcome with lethargy and he sank into sleep.

*****

Lucas didn’t dream, or he didn’t remember it if he did. His first memory of the day was Jamie shaking him awake, and smirking when he saw Lucas open his eyes. He took a few rapid steps back then, as Lucas had a tendency to swing his arm at whatever woke him, human or alarm clock.  
“Nikki wants you up. Says you have to go to the store.” The younger boy left the room. He was wearing some kind of sporting attire, Lucas noticed. He probably had a soccer game.

Lucas grunted something incoherent. His mouth tasted like cardboard and his eyes felt heavier than his head. He had his laptop still open on his lap. He blinked a few times and tapped the space key, lighting up the screen. His browser was open on the Wikipedia page for UFO sightings in the Southern Utah area (he wasn’t sure why or how he had come to be researching this topic), but he closed the web window and checked the time. 8:28 AM.  
He rubbed his face, closed the computer and swung his legs onto the floor and stood.

Downstairs, the breakfast rush was in full swing: a handful of kids rushed around the cramped kitchen or ate at the table, dodging around Nikki’s legs as she tried to bring Martha, the 5-year-old, her food while simultaneously cooking some eggs.  
Lucas jumped in automatically, taking the plastic bowl from her hand and placing on the table in front of the whining girl. Nikki gave him a thankful look before returning to her lightly burning eggs.  
“Can you go to the store? We’re out of milk. And bread. Oh, and juice.” She scooped the eggs onto a plate and handed them over to the hungry hands of Kyle, the eight-year old.  
“Yeah, sure.” Lucas said with a mouthful of toast. He started making steps back out to the hallway.  
“Thanks honey!” Nikki called, waving a hand vaguely towards the front door without looking. “Cash is at the door. Take your bike, and hurry, please!”

*****

Lucas stepped outside the store, and groaned as he felt drops splash on his face. It was raining. He pulled up the hood of his sweater and wiped the seat of his bike dry, and shoved his earbuds in, and hit play. _(BITE, Troye Sivan)_.  
It wasn’t long until he was cycling towards home, eyes screwed up against the raindrops and balancing a plastic grocery bag on his handlebars. It wasn’t long again until Lucas realized he was being followed.  
He didn't notice them until he stopped at the first pedestrian crossing. Which was odd, since his pursuer stuck out in the suburbs; a tall figure clad in a long jacket with a hat pulled down low over their face. At least that’s what Lucas had been able to make out, as whoever it was had stopped moving as soon as he had turned, about a hundred meters up the street. They didn’t move as Lucas stared for a few seconds, before he saw the street was clear and sped across the road and away, feeling unnerved.  
Lucas’ experience with this individual weren’t over, though. He seemed to spot the creepy… being, every time he stopped pedaling his bike. His feelings went from unnerved to fearful as he rounded another corner. He was almost back at the house now, just a few turns. He cast a look behind him, and his breath caught as he saw the stooping stature of his pursuer turn the last corner on the street. _How are they keeping up?_

Lucas turned back to the road and stood up on his pedals. The rain was getting heavier, blurring his vision. He steered off the sidewalk into the empty street. He sped around the next corner, and the street opened up onto one of those little suburban parks that were ringed by houses.  
Lucas glided up onto the grass of the park and took another glance back. He couldn’t see the figure. His eyes scanned the street behind him, but it remained empty. Lucas breathed a relieved sigh. Maybe he was just being paranoid. He turned his head back around.  
He barely had time to register the figure’s sudden presence before he was hit with a heavy blow to the side of the head.  
_THUD._  
He felt weightless for a moment, until he hit the ground. He half bounced painfully, then slid on the rain-slicked grass. It wasn’t until he came to a stop that he registered the dull ache in his head and the stars dancing in his eyes.  
Lucas blinked and looked around dumbly. His bike was lying in the dirt next to a tree with the wheel feebly spinning. His attacker stood, black coat waving in the wind and dripping rainwater. His eyes focused on their face. A woman- middle aged, with a deeply lined face. _Wait a second._  
Lucas recognized her. It was the manager woman from the doughnut shop interview– _Laurie_! Except she was taller than she had looked form across the desk. A _lot_ taller. Way _too_ tall.  
She easily seven feet of old lady. And she no longer wore the fake-looking grin she had had during Lucas’ interview. Instead her face was twisted with the meanest-looking snarl Lucas had ever seen.

His head was swimming, throbbing with pain. He barely registered Laurie’s next words.  
“You’ve been _bad_ , godspawn.” Her voice was raspy, and she started walking towards him. “Children shouldn’t be out in the rain without a jacket!”  
“Wh-What the hell are you talking about?” Lucas stammered, his hands searching the ground around him for something to throw, all the while keeping his fearful eyes on the woman.  
“You’ll catch a cold!” She hissed, taking another step.  
Lucas saw that she had slipped out of her coat and was in her Monster Donut uniform. But as he watched, she started to change.  
It was horrifying. Her body convulsed as her back hunched over, her arms elongated and grew long talons. Her mouth stretched across her face until it was a grotesque chasm of serrated fangs. What stood in front of Lucas then was a seven-foot nightmare, wearing a donut store uniform. Long necked and with sickly grey skin, it had a long neck and long arms tipped with razor-sharp claws. Laurie's face had remained near the same, except instead of a fake smile she wore a very real-looking mouth, gaping and rimmed with wickedly pointed teeth.

Laurie –or whatever it was- took a step towards him. Lucas was shaking uncontrollably. He forced himself to blink as the monster hissed. _Can't be real._ He managed to shakily get to his feet and stumble backward, almost slipping in the patches of mud.  
All of a sudden, she lunged. It was fast, leaping at Lucas like a cat, raking a taloned hand at Lucas’ head-  
Somehow, Lucas dodged– or rather, stumbled– out of the way. Demon-mode Laurie overbalanced and crashed into a tree. Lucas straightened and ran, as fast as he could, in the other direction.  
He flat-out sprinted across the park, sneakers slipping in the mud. The rain was pounding down, and the scattered trees of the green offered little shelter. Lucas could hear Laurie screeching and gnashing her teeth as it came up behind him. He was almost at the road now, lungs screaming and legs aching.  
Lucas could almost sense it as the monster leapt at his back. Last second, Lucas dove at the grass, tumbling and slipping in the mud. His eyes were screwed shut, but he heard the creature wail as it flew above him and a resounding crash as it hit a tree.  
Again, Lucas scrambled to his feet, already hearing the monster moving and hissing. He turned to run back, towards his bike– “ _Aaaagh_!” Pain exploded in Lucas’ leg. He yelled as again he was thrown aside like a rag doll. He let out a feeble wheeze as he slammed onto the ground.  
When he looked up, the creature was already moving towards him, with a dark substance dripping from its left talons. _My blood,_ Lucas’ said to himself numbly. He tried to move, but every time he stirred his right leg pain stabbed at him and more blood stained his ripped jeans. The cuts were deep. And somehow, no one in any of the houses surrounding had noticed anything going on.

The monster was taking her time moving towards him. She knew he was trapped.  
Suddenly, a resounding _crack-boom_ ran out around the park, and the tree trunk nearest to the demon exploded, showering her with splinters. She screeched, and whipped her head around.  
“Naughty!”  
A girl stood behind the creature, holding out smoking handgun. She was tall, with an athletic build with skin the color of milk chocolate and black hair that was tied up in two bunches on either side of her head. Lucas felt a trill of hope. She looked like she was here to help, and she meant business.  
“Come on then!” The girl yelled, firing another shot at the creature.  
Demon-Mode Laurie dodged, but barely. _She’s cool,_ thought Lucas hazily. His head was starting to feel heavy from blood loss.  
He watched as the monster lurched and started running towards the girl, fast. Too fast. It dodged another shot, and then swiped at the girl’s hands. The gun was knocked away from the girl. It landed in the mud a meter or two from Lucas. _Oh, shit_.  
Laurie lunged with her elongated neck and snapped at the girl with razor teeth, but the girl dodged easily, and returned with a powerful kick that sent her attacker staggering backward, hissing again. Whoever this girl was, she was good. Lucas watched as the girl drew a knife from her belt- but even despite her prowess, this monster had size and natural speed on her. And that dagger looked positively tiny compared to Laurie’s maw and claws.

Lucas’ eyes drifted to the gun, half buried as it was in a puddle. He began clawing his way towards it, ignoring the near-blinding pain in his leg. He watched as the girl began to whirl and dodge and jab at the creature. But each of her attacks was blocked and Laurie replied with a ferocious and merciless flurry of bites and slashes. The air was filled with a melody of metal on bone and hisses and yells. Just as Lucas reached the gun, the monster found its way past the girl’s defense and raked its claws down the girl’s side. There was a scream, and the girl collapsed to her knees. Lucas’ hand found the gun, his finger wrapped around the trigger. Sitting up, he felt a strange tugging in his gut, and he held the weapon up, aimed, released a breath and squeezed the trigger just as the monster raised her arm to deliver the final blow.  
_Crack!_  
He knew as soon as felt the gun kick in his hands that the shot was off. The bullet whizzed through the air. Laurie lurched as the shot found its target, but the bullet had only skimmed the monster’s leg above the bony knee. The wound sprayed black blood and the creature staggered backward, but didn’t fall.  
Emitting an inhuman sound like a guttural whine, Laurie turned and stared at Lucas, who felt the gun drop from his grasp and slumped onto the dirt. He was really starting to feel that blood loss now. The monster left the still form of the girl and began to limp towards Lucas.  
“Very bad child!” Her eyes were, unsettlingly, the exact same eyes that had stared at him in a job interview just the day before. _Oh, shit_ , Lucas thought vaguely. He tried to reach for the gun, but he couldn’t lift it to aim. _Oh. Shit_.  
The monster was moving slowly, but he was still almost within range of her claws. Then, she stopped and looked at the bloody cut on her own leg. Suddenly, Laurie began a low hiss. Her hiss turned into a screech, and then it was an ear-splitting scream as the leg with her bullet wound began to swell. Boils began to pop up like wildfire around the wound and up her leg. The rest of her body began to swell too, and soon her Monster Donut uniform tore and popped off her shuddering form. Her shrieking died out and she began gasping and coughing.  
Lucas watched the scene play out until suddenly, Laurie’s demonic face went blue. She took one half step towards him before she promptly collapsed into sulfuric-yellow dust. There was a long while before lucas felt any thoughts again.

 _Did that seriously just happen?_ Lucas was lost. The rain was thinning out into a drizzle. The girl, he noticed, was beginning to stir. But he didn’t feel like he could move at all. His vision was blurry.  
Then the girl stood and started staggering toward him. It felt like hours until she finally appeared above him, face screwed up with pain.  
“Are you– ah– alright?” She gasped. She braced a hand on a nearby tree and offered him a hand. Lucas managed to stand, with a lot of help and groaning from the pair of them. He leaned heavily on the tree, staring intently at the now soggy pile of yellowish dust. He didn’t speak. The girl picked up her gun, wiped it on her leggings and put it in her holster.  
She stood next to him. “Hey?” The girl said, vying for his attention. Lucas looked at her without turning his head. “Listen,” She went on, a strained expression on her face. Her hand was pressed to her wounds and was slick with blood, “I know that was a lot to take in, but we– ah! – Need to move. There’ll be more of them, soon.”  
Lucas started. “Wait– what? There’s–“  
“More of them? Yeah. There’s worse.”  
She began to move- slowly- towards the street. “Backup should be here soon. Get to the- shit, ow - Street.” Lucas followed, copying her steps from tree to tree, using them as support.  
His injured leg dragged behind him and his head swam with pain, but he pushed on. It was a long while before either of the two made any noise apart from moans and grunts of pain.  
It wasn’t until they finally reached the street that she spoke again. “I’m Kristina, by the way.” Her eyes were on the overcast sky. The rain had died out.  
“Lucas.” Came his reply. Short, as he was seriously feeling like the ground was spinning.  
There was another minute’s silence, and then she pointed to the clouds. “Finally. Wilson’s so bad at the chariot.”  
_Chariot?_ Lucas kept his eyes on where she’d pointed. He could see a vague black shape. His thoughts were too blurry to make any sense of it, but if today’s events thus far were anything to go by, it wasn’t a songbird.

A chariot  did indeed touch down soon after, with a spot of bumping. Lucas was too spaced out to even appreciate what looked like a genuine Greek war chariot dropping from the sky in the Providence suburbs. He was obscurely taken aback by what looked like giant feathery wings attached to the horses drawing the chariot.  
Putting these thoughts aside for later, he stumbled over to the open back of the chariot and tried to follow Kristina into the back of the vehicle, but only succeeded in doing a half-flop onto the end of the chariot floor with his legs trailing behind.  
“Whoa, man.” An unrecognized voice above him said. Lucas raised his head and his eyes focused on a new character standing at the reigns, craning backward and offering a hand to Lucas. It was a guy who looked older than Lucas, about seventeen.  
Tall, with a slight build and long arms. He had a slender face with high cheekbones, full lips, light blue eyes and a long nose splashed with freckles. His curly hair was damp and stuck out in wild directions from wind.  
“Welcome on board! I'm Wilson, I'll be your captain tonight.” He waved the reigns, then turned back to Lucas as the horse-bird-things started to trot. “You’re gonna want to get in, kiddo. And, like, rope yourself down." He switched back to a comical announcer-type voice. "Please keep your arms and legs inside the chariot at all times, unless they come off. Next stop: Camp Half-Blood!”


End file.
